He wrote better songs than Bowie. He played a meaner guitar than Marc Bolan. During a period of rock and roll that showcased glitter, mirrored top hats, face paint and leotards, he and his band would take the stage in impeccably tailored three piece suits. The time was the mid 1970’s, the artist is Bill Nelson and the band was Be-Bop Deluxe.
Nelson certainly played the game initially in order to get noticed. Back then, having good tunes was not enough. Wild costumes and shock value showmanship were absolutely necessary. Their first album had the face of a human skull fashioned into the body of an electric guitar. On the back cover was a photo of the band camped up with teased out hair and plenty of eye shadow. But all you had to do was drop the needle on side one, track one and listen to the lyric to realize there are deeper issues at play here.
“ He came to watch the band….to see us play our parts…We hoped you’d lend an ear…You hoped we’d dress like tarts….but backstage we stand naked….all the makeup cleaned away…my poet sheds his pretty skin, and turns to face the day…..”
So here comes the talent scout, eager to sign the next big thing. The band wants their music to be heard, but the AOR guy wants to see androgyny. To him, the image means everything but to the artist , it’s a necessary evil in order to get their tunes recorded. Sort of like buying gasoline to get to work. You don’t want it, but you need it so you can afford groceries.
It took only one album for Nelson to shed his “pretty skin”, sacking all the other members of the band and replacing them with what would be known as their classic line up. For the band’s second album “Futurama”, Producer Roy Thomas Baker (of Queen fame) was enlisted to twiddle the control room knobs. The result was one of the greatest records of 1975, if not the entire decade. Only problem was, with no gimmicks or visuals for the record company to glom onto, the LP did not sell and was poorly promoted, at least in the United States.
In the Rough guide to Rock Peter Buckley described the album as:
"Top-heavy with massed guitars and melodic ideas pursued on a whim and just as quickly abandoned, it nevertheless contained two of the most perfect pop singles never to make the charts — “Maid In Heaven” and “Sister Seagull."
While Piero Scaruffi only mentions the band for half of one sentence in the whole book A History of Rock Music: 1951-2000 his words sum up Bill Nelson’s style and the new bands performance:
"..., and Bill Nelson's Be-Bop Deluxe predated New Wave by fusing Hendrix's guitar neurosis and Eno's electronic paranoia, particularly on Futurama (1975).
Despite the dissappointing sales, enough positive buzz surrounded the band to allow a third release, 1976’s “Sunburst Finish”. The record would finally yield a breakthrough on the UK singles charts with the reggae tinged “Ships In The Night”, which made it as high as #23. Although Be-Bop would never dent the singles charts in America, their records were finally starting to make inroads on the progressive FM rock stations of the day.
1977 would bring the band more moderate success with the release of “Modern Music”, arguably their most consistent artistic statement. Some tireless touring as opening acts in the United States and elsewhere provided enough material to release a live record that continued their slow yet steady momentum in sales and airplay.
Bill Nelson was not the type of artist that would stagnate and 1978’s “Drastic Plastic” was a quantum leap forward from previous records in regards to song styles and melodic structures. Songs like “Electrical Language” and “Surreal Estate” leaned more towards electronics and less toward conventional instruments. Radio programmers were dumbfounded, the record never gained significant airplay or sales, and the band broke up shortly afterwards.
While Bill would move on to other musical projects and still creates to this day, he essentially walked away from all commercial aspects of the music industry. Upon laying Be Bop Deluxe to rest, he remains comfortable in the knowledge that stardom was simply something that never suited him. “The glamourousness and the packaging…that’s what the industry uses to sell the product….That’s something I’ve always found to be a difficult thing to swallow….and I felt uncomfortable being a part of that. It’s meaningless, totally meaningless and it has nothing whatsoever to do with creating the music…which is often a very personal and intense experience done in private…away from the public gaze. No, I don’t miss it at all.”
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